Map 8 is more or less done, the boss fight needs some tweaking, but other than that, good to go. I will be releasing the first 8 missions of the campaign (barring any last minute terrible bugs) tomorrow night, and the epilogue on Friday night.

Teaser:

In retrospect, the terrain in this part of the level is a bit bland. On the other hand, you'll be too busy slaughtering hordes of zerg with your Zephyr Tank to notice.

Eh, I'll fix it tomorrow. (You'll also have a problem with the music in Mission 7 that I just caught like a half hour ago, but thats been resolved and reuploaded) I tried for a long time to get the transport to work like a real transport, and ended up settling for just moving the units.

I'm glad you like it so far. I personally think it really starts to pick up in mission 4, both in terms of gameplay and story.

The music in mission one is a remix of Explosions in the Sky's 'Catastrophe and the Cure'. The remix is by Four Tet.

Actually, here's a music list!

Mission 1 (The Stuff of Nightmares)Explosions in the Sky - Catastrophe and the Cure (Four Tet Mix)

Mission 5 - Nightmare zerglings and nightmare ults have an 'air' attack because that was the only way i could give them a special attack. Due to that, they will stand there attacking nothing if air units are around. Mission 5 is the only level where that could matter, though.

EDIT: Nevermind, I just assumed most players would start by attacking the UED, you opted to do the covert route first. (for trapped zerg)

As for nexus defense...[spoiler]You can 'win' if you find the nukes, or at least, lose a little less. You're told early on that all of Caine's forces are dead, and I figured it would jar most players who are used to winning missions to actually see them get wiped out. [/spoiler]

The creep on minerals doesn't cause the crash (though I have no idea what causes that), its the Nidhogs.

Last edited by tipereth on Mon Aug 03, 2009 4:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I believe that between the epilogue and the 'secret' terminals in mission 8, I wrapped up the Nightmares, Aeolus, and the protoss. However, I did leave one thing untouched. Rachel and Caine's motivations are pretty clearly defined throughout the campaign. Phaika's, however, are sort of a mystery. I wanted to leave it up to players to decide WHY, but here's some points to consider (all of which are presented in some way during the campaign):

(MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE FREAKING CAMPAIGN)

[spoiler]- The UED basically gave Phaika up for dead after the zerg took Aeolus. Then they turned off the local comm network, which kept the nightmares at bay, but also kept Phaika from contacting them.- The UED cannot make spacecraft. Moreover, the UED cannot go home until their mission is complete.- The UED's mission (taking over the Dominion comm network) requires both spacecraft (to get there) and control of the NIghtmares (to find the comm relay posts)

Preliminary feedback of the story had a lot of people asking 'Why did Phaika go through all that just to kill Rachel?', when that is really not at all why he went through the whole charade. I mean, yeah, he was probably gonna kill her eventually, but the UED only brought her along on the last mission because they thought they needed her because she and Caine are both of Dominion allegiance.

The campaign does end with Phaika assuming control over essentially all Terran communications, and just waiting for Earth's next fleet. I have to wait until SC2 is fully released, but I intentionally left it open for a sequel.[/spoiler]

Krazy, if you're talking about the boss fight, I don't know, maybe you just got really unlucky (their secondary attack is splash damage).If you tried to go through the mist without turning off the vents, it's not a player 12 Dark Swarm, so it doesn't actually block damage. I only put that option in because I knew people would try it, and an instant death on entering the pit seemed kinda lame. It's still pretty much an impassable obstacle without turning off the vents.

Text-> + Overall well-written-> + Grammar seems fine overall-> + Mostly informs the player correctly of the events.-> + Text properly formatted for reading-> + While fairly basic for characters' speech, it does the trick.-> - Some typos there and there although many are due to lack of capitalization and the occasional same repeating typos.-> - The text went too fast in two or three occasions.-> - Quite a few cases where some information text illogically pop up if the events or scenarios deviate from intended.

Professional-> + Decent thread updates with screenshots and such-> + Extra sounds are added and mostly played at the right time (one or two specifics cases are lacking)-> + Have a proper credits section at the end of the campaign

Triggering-> + Good overall and functional overall.-> + Good array of trigger actions used in addition of switches and locations.-> + Commented and more structured triggers internal-wise-> + Decent use of triggers for the stealth mission-> - Two critical bugs (one that can be likely to a specific kind of players while one is unlikely)

Mapping - Layout

-> + The layout simply works period. Large spaces when needed when large forces are involved (thus you don't try to position your forces in odd situations). Smaller spaces for more commando-style missions.-> + Maneuvering the maps was easy. The only issue I might ever had are enemy units that sometimes blocked me in the stealth mission's tiny spaces (thus forcing engagement) due to triggering their movement in the first space but otherwise fine.

Mapping - Beauty

-> + Very good overall (looks good, doesn't look rushed although terrain might look a bit plain at times).-> + Obvious effort at placing doodads at many good spots.

-> + Some graphical modding for the characters' faces.-> + Custom music-> + Original stealth mission-> + Interesting story even if you might feel lost at times-> + Ending with a bang-> + Campaign just at the right length (not too short, not too long)

-> Sometimes the campaign might mislead the player involuntary or lead occasionally to confusion for reaching the objectives. Usually by lack of non-text evidence or "obviousness" (might needed some beacons or map revealers).-> Despite knowing that the campaign is hard in general, sometimes it might feel unwinnable at times (for the parts you are supposed to win) and thus tempting to use cheats to continue.-> Various odd things there and there in the campaign.

Individual maps

GENERAL (over multiple maps)

-> Oddie : The flash marine's voice should have been changed to the default voiceset since we hear "Jimmy here" and "Raynor here" (considering said campaign must tie with the original storyline and that the hero marine's portrait was modified).

-> Suggestion : Might have been preferable to have "Door locked" messages.

MAP #1

-> Issue : The dialogue at the computers a bit too fast since probably only fast readers would have read that in time.

-> Minor complain : Might be hard to resist the nightmare zerg units due to only having a Protoss templar with only 2 storm shots while preferably needed 3+ to survive better near the elevator.

-> Issue : In briefing, message scroll of text CLEARLY went too fast.-> Issue : Dropship is killable by player in early mission during the transmission (should be invincible until it should die otherwise)-> Suggestion : Add a little something to visually show that a comm replay was activated-> Oddie : Looks odd when a player's generic marine's selection circle flashes instead of the purple marine when he talks-> Issue : Able to kill the purple marine before he can even talk (which he *still* does talk when you reach the location). In addition, all without repercussions. Ultimately, he should be invincible until the queen strikes.

-> Oddie : Looks odd that a marine of yours can talk IF you reach the command center without a marine left.-> Bug : Possible to have a "Unplacable unit (Infested Terran)" if you move enough units under the Infested CC.-> CRITICAL : It can be possible for the Nightmare Queen and/or the Infested CC to stay invulnerable especially if you save/load at the sensible times or with different game speeds.

-> Suggestion : Add that you can bring the psi emitter to the yellow beacon as optional in the game menu's objectives.-> Suggestion : Add/remove some temporaly unit or a yellow beacon so you can get control all the new yellow units at the west-bottom of the map (new units can be missed if the player believes he only get the yellow goliaths and bunkers).

-> Praise : An interesting alternative mission end if you find something in particular (doesn't change the course of story).-> Suggestion : It must be preferable to show up a victory screen even if it seems illogical so the player doesn't believe they can somehow survive the map (potentially can make some to reload over and over to try to win).

-> Typo (Briefing) : "zerg" is not capitalized

MAP #5

-> Complain : The beacon at the bottom-left can be misleading since we could believe it is some sort of entrance when it is not. Beacon should be yellow instead of purple to show it is the location to receive yellow units.

-> Issue : A "receiving sound" should be issued when you do get yellow units. I easily destroyed half of the map before I noticed I had 15+ new yellow units purely by accident. Mini-map pings helps but it's not enough especially in action.

-> Praise : Can be damn fun to bombard the hell out of zergling with the modded valkyries after such trouble with them.

-> Suggestion : Considering the lack of space to fit everything in the game menu's mission objectives, the information about both starports surviving should have been written instead of how to get more yellow units.

-> Mention : The map can crash but the map does warn players to save often. Since it rarely crashed in my case coupled with the warning, I can forgive that.

-> Oddie : The Zerg AI seems to be brain-dead up to a point. Although I am not sure if it was intended to make it more interesting to use the valkyries to kill them effortlessly OR if it's because I saved/loaded too often.

-> Oddie : Odd creep remaining on the minerals at the upper-left part of the map. Doesn't seem to break anything.

-> Oddie : I noticed a nightmare zergling doing the attack sprite in 4x slow motion but much more oddly against completely nothing. It even turns around to face a valkyrie (but does nothing but it seems it's due to its secondary attack that auto-target air but can't attack it).

Praise : An interesting and original stealth mission with decent use of triggers as well.

Issue : In early mission's explanation, there is a lot of text that goes simply too fast (unless you are a very fast reader or something)

Complain : Map doesn't reveal the location of communications. It can be worse due to people trying to look for the doodad used in mission #2 (comm relay) when it is a closed door doodad at the NE corner of the map.

Complain : In the briefing, "THEREAFTER" should probably be centered. Same for "PRESS START". Seems a bit odd otherwise but no real issue with text formatting.

Issue : Caine still say there is gas in the corridor EVEN if you cleared the gas in advance with the other party.

Complain : Orange Zerg might pile at some locations if you didn't leave your strike force behind at key locations to kill them in smaller charging batches while you are using your ghost team. Due to piling up, it can become too hard to kill the piled Zerg force in addition of the fairly fortified Terran force at the same location.

Complain : Might be difficult to navigate the end of the mission with only Caine if he was previously blinded since he barely see anything in front. This is considering he relies on cloak and energy does have a limit.

CRITICAL : If Caine stays blinded and reaches the end of the mission, he cannot kill Phaika (via triggers) because he can't see him until you use the vision cheat, otherwise the mission hangs before completion. Suggestion being to replace Caine by a new one to ensure he is not blinded.

I am of the opinion that 'zerg' and 'protoss' do not need to be capitalized, for the same reason that 'giraffe' or 'human' or even 'black/white/asian' do not need to be capitalized. (Unless they're being used as proper nouns, as opposed to adjectives. ie "Lookie there, a Zerg!" is right, but so is "The zerg attack inflicted tremendous damage.")

Ricky basically said 'let the people decide' when I asked him about this, so yeah.

tipereth wrote:I am of the opinion that 'zerg' and 'protoss' do not need to be capitalized, for the same reason that 'giraffe' or 'human' or even 'black/white/asian' do not need to be capitalized. (Unless they're being used as proper nouns, as opposed to adjectives. ie "Lookie there, a Zerg!" is right, but so is "The zerg attack inflicted tremendous damage.")

Ricky basically said 'let the people decide' when I asked him about this, so yeah.

Exactly. That is the way it's done in all the recent books, graphic novels, etc. and has also been adopted as the wiki naming policy. Blizzard has taken a more realistic method of naming. The same also applies to titles. Take these examples: "I want to be a sergeant in the military when I grow up!" compared to "I am Sergeant Gui Montag". 'Executor' is treated the same way. "That's typical of executors" compared to "Where is the Executor?" It's the difference between "an executor" and "the Executor".

"Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will."-George Bernard Shaw

For map 6, I figured that everyone would catch on pretty quickly that you would go to the same place as you did in the last map. I was intentionally vague or misleading about several things in the campaign, but this wasn't supposed to be one of them. Oops.

As for elevator defense, getting the aug units in the first corridor makes it a lot easier. If you can keep your choke until the nightmares arrive, you're pretty much set.